Dead Ted

When I was in college, I had a couple of roommates a few years younger than me. I mostly was just trying to finish college and graduate in my second senior year, and they were freshmen. We somehow got lumped together, or I lived in the room next door and then moved in with them somehow. I don't remember the circumstances. 

I had a teddy bear. Mind you, it was mostly a rag. But it was mine, I brought it from home, and my entire life I mended it myself. Some of you reading this will remember this bear. He didn't really have a name. I kept him under my pillow. I was discrete about it. Who wants a 20+ yr old roommate who sleeps with a teddy bear, right? How weird. 

Anyway, they hated the bear, made fun of the bear, would play catch with it (their boyfriends would be over and they'd just throw it all over the room, monsters that they were. 

They called him Dead Ted. 

I wasn't particularly super close with these two. They were okay. In all other ways inoffensive. Meh. Right? 

One of them sent me email the other day with some photos. One of the three of us, one of me in a black dress with some kind of chain around me and maybe a name tag? I'm not sure what the story is with this picture. I do not remember it at all, but I'm super cute. 

And a picture of the bear. 

She wrote about "oh my God this thing was so disgusting I hated it! I can't believe you had this. It was so gross! hahahahhahahahhahah!!!!" 

And I haven't replied. 

I'm kind of like, well, fuck you. Okay? Just. Fuck you.

That bear was the best part of my childhood, and I'll tell ya, my childhood was not awesome so if this ratty looking smelly piece of cloth is the best thing I brought from home? What's that say? It was my security bear. It was mine, and mine alone. And I loved it. It went across the country with me to Oregon in 1988. It remained under my pillow after Doug and I got married. Eventually, I put it in a box, and put it way high up on a shelf on my bureau. 

I was pregnant with Geoff, and I came home one day to find my dog Missy had climbed up on my bed, climbed onto the bureau, and pulled the box down from the top shelf, and had shredded the bear completely. 

I did not handle this gracefully. Jess was little, and I remember kneeling on the floor beside my bed with all the pieces all over, just weeping. And she was stunned. I think she was crying too. And the dog was of course all "Hey mom, I'm so glad you're home!!!" 

It took me a long time to kind of recover from that heartbreak. That was 26 years ago, and, I'd had the damn thing 25 or so years. 

So to get this email with her being all "oh hey look at this piece of shit you used to own, LOL LOL gross" was a big unnerving. 

I've got nothing left from that. I think I saved his nose for a while, in another little box, but eventually let it go. 

Anyway. My point on this entry is basically that whatever people have, cherish, love, don't give them shit about it. So what I was 20 something with a teddy bear. You don't know the journey, so don't be a dick. 

Look around and think about all the people you know. You work with. You see on the subway. In the grocery store. And imagine they have something they so very cherish. Be happy for them. 

Here's the picture. I can hear them laughing as they took the photo. 
Every stitch is mine. Every "i only have red thread so I'm using it" stitch, is mine.

digits

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps. missed noon because I was goofing off with my coworker. 
Dedicated 10+6

blood glucose:
8am: 174
4:30pm: 130
9:30pm: 183

food:
coffee, water
10am: 2 good meyer lemon yogurt (3 g carbs)
1pm: metformin; 1 can of tuna, 1/3 head of romaine, several cherry tomatoes, mayo, mixed together (basically no carbs at all)
4:30pm: protein shake
6:30pm: corned beef & cabbage, carrots, onion, small potatoes
7;45pm: metformin+jardiance